tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38185743972568736142017-08-15T16:26:36.547-07:00'New Age Mormon Pagans': Mormonism and the New SpiritualityLiving Between the Mormon WorldsDoe Daughtreynoreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-55722722477232212672010-09-23T15:51:00.002-07:002010-09-23T16:17:07.980-07:00Practical Magic: Walking Between the Worlds, or Distinguishing 'Normal' from Everything Else<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://hottopop.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/magic.gif?w=238&amp;h=240" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://hottopop.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/magic.gif?w=238&amp;h=240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue. </span></i></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>It rather denotes a lack of courage!</i></b></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practical_Magic"><i>Practical Magic</i> the film</a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Magic-Alice-Hoffman/dp/0425190374/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_2"><i>Practical Magic </i>the book</a> </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><i> </i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;">While doing some research I came across the <a href="http://pmblogparty.blogspot.com/"><i>Practical Magic</i> Blog Party</a>, which I so wanted to comment on and even participate in! But. . . . the question was how I might participate, given that the purpose of my blog is to reflect on the experience and practice of writing a doctoral dissertation on the topic of popular religion (what I and some other scholars call "The New Spirituality."&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">The book and film both fit into this category, but I still wasn't sure how to go about contributing to the party as an academic, given that I haven't written any spells or baked any Practical Magic cookies!</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Then I remembered this quote from the movie, which appears on the Blog Party website. In the book and subsequent film, one of the main characters desperately wants to be "normal"--or, in her particular context, NOT a witch. She forbids her children to do magic and denies her true identity as a hereditary witch in hopes that she might avoid the family curse, under which the men loved by Owens women die tragically.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">What is normal? In fact, my own perception of normalcy feels deeply connected to the history of religion in America as well as the development of Western psychology and psychiatry, which included the pathologization and medicalization of women's religious experience. Historically, as the book and film illustrate (the curse is cast in 1690, by Maria Owens just before her hanging for witchcraft), not being "normal" (i.e. Protestant enough; Catholic enough; Christian--the <i>right</i> Christian--enough) could get you killed--or in later years committed to an asylum! </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">That said, "normal" is not really a state of being; it is, rather, an <b><i>experience </i></b>we have </span><span style="font-size: large;"> of ourselves </span><span style="font-size: large;">(or that someone else creates of us) in relation to others.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Though some scholars debate the characterization of various historical outpourings of religious enthusiasm/excitement as “Great Awakenings,” [1]<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3818574397256873614#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""></a> it is undeniable that, in one way or another, privileging personal experience has been a religious imperative throughout American history. For adherents/practitioners, authentic religion is based on personal experience: a new birth constituting a religion of the heart. Anne Hutchinson, Mother Ann Lee, Joseph Smith, Ellen White, and Mary Baker Eddy; the Fox sisters: All of these individuals acted out of their own revelatory and/or practical experience. Mormonism and the New Spirituality (including New Age and various Neopaganisms) inherited that impulse.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">In her book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fits-Trances-Visions-experiencing-explaining/dp/0691010242"><i>Fits, trances, &amp; visions: experiencing religion and explaining experience from Wesley to James</i> (1999)</a>, which traces historical attitudes toward involuntary or spontaneous religious experience in America, Anne Taves argues that “experience” and “practice” are intertwined in a “necessarily dynamic and interdependent” relationship.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[2]</span></span> From the 18<sup>th</sup> century forward, revivalism’s emphasis on personal experience made policing and disciplining religious rebels more and more difficult. <span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[3]</span></span> Like many of the women who participated in my dissertation project, 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup>-century American Christians were concerned with distinguishing their particular experiences and practices as legitimate, trying to avoid their being associated with unauthorized spiritual expressions.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[4]</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">I would say that nothing much has changed (witness the controversy over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero in NYC), except that would be untrue. Many LDS women, for example, are still watching themselves, trying to gauge their relationship to the "normal" in their communities as they push the boundaries of their personal spirituality and religious identities. That's what I'm writing about! But today so many resources exist to confirm their decisions as "normal," whichever direction they go. Americans enjoy endless religious/spiritual options and, in the end, we each choose for ourselves what works best.&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">That may mean a woman chooses to appear as "normal" as possible while pursuing alternative spiritual practices on the side and/or on the sly. It may mean she gives Mormonism (or insert your choice of religious tradition) the heave-ho and navigates her broom to some other more hospitable location.&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">All possible choices on that spectrum take courage.&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">I've long struggled with the sense that I wasn't "normal," primarily because of the things I thought about, my fears and concerns, and especially my perpetual brawl with patriarchal authority of any kind--which in Mormonism is a no-no. However, like Sally Owens (played in the film by Sandra Bullock), who found that embracing one's authentic self (in her case, her inherited powers) led not to tragedy and ostracism but to resolution and acceptance inside her local New England community, I have accepted that my own personal inauthenticity is way too costly. Ultimately, I am the chooser, so to speak. I choose that my varied cherished communities of women overlap so that distinctions between "normal" and its opposite (whatever <i>that </i>is) dissolve.&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">Inside of intentional community, <i>normal </i>= <i>healthy</i>, and so <i>normal </i>can be an integrative act.&nbsp;</span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">So tonight I drink a Coke Zero toast to all those who are witches, and especially to those who are afraid to be!&nbsp;</span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">Take a deep breath and choose!</span></span></span> </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br clear="all" /></span><br /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div id="ftn1"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="font-size: small;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"> See, for instance, Jon Butler, “Enthusiasm Described and Decried: The Great Awakening as Interpretative Fiction,” in <i>The Journal of American History</i>, Vol. 69, No. 2 (Sep., 1982), pp. 305-325; Jon Butler, <i>Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People</i> (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990); and Frank Lambert, “Inventing the Great Awakening: </span><span style="font-size: small;">Whose Interpretive Fiction?” in</span><span class="Heading1Char" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><cite>The New England Quarterly</cite>, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 650-659.</span></div></div><div id="ftn2"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="font-size: small;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[2]</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"> Ann Taves. <i>Fits, trances, &amp; visions: experiencing religion and explaining experience from Wesley to James</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999, p. 47.</span></div></div><div id="ftn3"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="font-size: small;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[3]</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"> Bellah, et. al. <i>History of the Hearth: individualism and Commitment in American Life</i>. Berkeley, L.A., London: University of California Press, 1985, p. 233.</span></div></div><div id="ftn4"><div class="MsoFootnoteText"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference" style="font-size: small;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[4]</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"> Ann Taves associates scholars’ use of terms like “religious experience,” mysticism,” and “spirituality” with the division between theology and religious studies; theologians are more likely to identify those terms with “high religion” as opposed to popular or “folk” religion (p. 6). Speaking of the difficulties inherent in studying religious experience, Taves argues “Since there is no way to specify an inherently contested phenomenon precisely . . . scholars can situate what people characterize as religious, spiritual, mystical, magical, superstitious, and so forth in relation to larger processes of meaning making and valuation, in which people deem some things special and set them apart from others,” (p. 12). Ann Taves. <i>Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of</i> <i>Religion and Other Special Things</i></span></div></div></div>Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-69318761314649577572010-08-08T21:27:00.020-07:002010-08-08T22:21:07.266-07:00Big Time: The Difficulty of Increasing Favor While Also Wanting to Only Look Good<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><object height="405" width="500"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/AOYK7sG5c2Q&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1?color1=0x006699&amp;color2=0x54abd6&amp;border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/AOYK7sG5c2Q&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1?color1=0x006699&amp;color2=0x54abd6&amp;border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="500" height="405"></embed></object><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>I'm on my way I'm making it,&nbsp;&nbsp;</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>I've got to make it show yeah,&nbsp;</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>So much larger than life&nbsp;</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>I'm gonna watch it growing. </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>&nbsp;&nbsp;</b><br /><b>. . . .&nbsp;</b><br /><b></b><br /><b>&nbsp;My parties </b><b>have</b><b> all </b><b> </b><b>the big names&nbsp;</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>And I greet them with the widest smile <br />Tell them how my life is one big adventure&nbsp;</b><br /><b>And always they're amazed&nbsp;</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>When I show them 'round my house to my bed <br />I had it made like a mountain range&nbsp;</b><br /><b>With a snow white pillow for my big fat head <br />And my heaven will be a big heaven, <br />And I will walk through the front door . . . </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>"Big Time" </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Peter Gabriel, 1986&nbsp;</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b><a href="http://www.petergabriel.com/">http://www.petergabriel.com/</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://www.petergabriel.com/features/Play:_The_Videos/">http://www.gabriel.com/features/Play:_The_Videos/</a> </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/protectedimage.php?image=NatTunbridge/1bigtime.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/protectedimage.php?image=NatTunbridge/1bigtime.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">S</span><span style="font-size: small;">everal</span> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">of us have been discussing the article "</span><a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/print/700054363/Mormons-need-to-work-to-increase-favor.html" style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Mormons need to work to increase favor</a><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">," which reports on what appears to have been a frank discussion about the Mormon image in America, how Mormons are seen by the general public, with the goal of identifying and rectifying the causes of people's low opinions of the LDS Church and its members.</span><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Gary Lawrence's study apparently supports what I have long argued: Mormons often charge critics who ask hard questions with "misunderstanding" Mormonism or the LDS Church when, in fact, <i>they understand very well</i>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">As they say, taking responsibility for one's communication is the first step to cleaning up lack of integrity or authenticity. But it is often not pretty, for it involves having to face the reality of how we have been dishonest as well as how our ways of "being" land over there where others are. (Believe me: I know, because I routinely have to do it!) It's not just about facing what we <i>wish</i> others would see when they are in our presence. There's nothing <i>wrong&nbsp; </i>with wanting to <i>look </i>or <i>be</i> good, but cleaning up after ourselves requires recognizing what's really so about it. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">I realize that this is just an article and not the entire talk given by Lawrence at the <a href="http://www.fairlds.org/conf10b.html">FAIR conference</a> this week. Therefore, I admit that my concerns may actually have been addressed when he spoke to his audience. However, based on just this article, the consensus among my conversation partners seems to be that Lawrence's solutions for making changes in how Mormons relate to people still miss the mark.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">For instance, his suggestion that church members break up the three relational steps for getting friends to join the church into a six step model are likely to still occur to others as transparent friend-making with conversion as the goal. In other words, because nothing fundamental is changing in the person doing the friend-seeking (i.e. their motive for friend-seeking), it is likely that "favor toward Mormons" won't increase just because church members become more stealthy about pursuing converts.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Put another way, though Lawrence instructs readers not to make friends with an agenda, the tactic he promotes appears to perpetuates the baptism agenda. True friendship requires not trying to get anywhere with a potential friend but just delighting in their company.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Moreover, I'm not sure that Lawrence is on the right track with his suggestions for how to answer what have been hard questions for Mormons. For instance, Lawrence cites the active membership of Glenn Beck and Harry Reid as evidence that Mormonism is "a big-tent religion." The article doesn't clarify the context, but I assume Lawrence is referring to a perceived lack of diversity in Mormonism (or, presumably, blind obedience in the political sphere). Though I get where he's trying to go with that, there is no obvious acknowledgment of&nbsp; how polarizing both of those figures have been in the larger American (and American <i>Mormon</i>) community/ies.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Similarly, complicated questions cannot be answered in a soundbite. Other seemingly flippant remarks he suggests as responses to questions about polygamy ("If I wanted to be excommunicated from the church, I would practice polygamy; the other sins take longer.") and Christian identity ("Of course we believe the Bible; our members wrote it.) ignore the complexity these questions ask about religious identity and are likely to land for non-members as inherently offensive. In fact, I see very little difference between those responses and the question about the relationship between Jesus and Lucifer, against which Mormons always cry foul when it arises.That, too, is a complicated relationship--and that's the problem. When we try act like Protestants, our doctrines simply reveal the truth we try to obscure with the charge that we're "misunderstood."&nbsp; &nbsp; </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Finally, as an academic, I must also dispute the claim that Mormonism can only be "fairly" represented by the experience of "believing" Mormons (whatever that means). When looking into/studying any religion, it is necessary to listen to as many voices as possible. The full experience of Mormonism doesn't just reside in just those who have temple recommends or who believe the church to be "true." (And what it means to "believe" something is very complex).</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">However, according to Lawrence, "less prepared" members appear to be less appropriate representatives, though they actually have more non-Mormon friends than do active Mormons. (This in itself is a huge ah-ha moment that could transform any&nbsp; church member's point of view in deep ways.) Though "less prepared" is clearly a euphemism for "less active," it remains unclear by what criteria these church members' stories are insufficient or, as is implied, don't qualify as true or legitimate Mormon experience.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Like all people, Mormons want to be treated fairly in the marketplace of ideas. However, at the same time they also want only to look good. That isn't a criticism of Mormons. It's the human condition. But it is important to distinguish the meaning of the term "fair." Some of the <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+fair&amp;ie=utf-8&amp;oe=utf-8&amp;aq=t&amp;client=firefox-a&amp;rlz=1R1GGLL_en___US388">definitions of "fair" </a>include "not excessive or extreme"; "free from bias or deception"; and "evenhanded." However, it can mean "very pleasing to the eye" while simultaneously designating something as "average: lacking exceptional quality or ability." </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Identifying the ways in which some things fail to work, or the times when our actions have caused others harm, doesn't necessarily constitute "distortion" of the truth, nor is it "unfair." The last time I looked, those acknowledgments were inherent to the practice of repentance. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Religion is messy, and the (<i>fair</i>) truth is never at the ends but always somewhere in between the poles.</div>Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-51605108450035973662010-06-26T11:37:00.007-07:002010-06-26T11:46:38.854-07:00Déjà vu<div style="text-align: center;"><object height="405" width="500"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qOKqQpQcRgA&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0xe1600f&amp;color2=0xfebd01&amp;border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qOKqQpQcRgA&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0xe1600f&amp;color2=0xfebd01&amp;border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="500" height="405"></embed></object></div><br /><br /><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><b>These walls have eyes<br />Rows of photographs<br />And faces like mine<br />Who do we become<br />Without knowing where<br />We started from</b></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><b>. . . .</b></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><b>&nbsp;And I will try to connect<br />All the pieces you left<br />I will carry it on<br />And let you forget<br />And I'll remember the years<br />When your mind was clear<br />How the laughter and life<br />Filled up this silent house</b></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><b>by&nbsp; Neil Finn, Natalie Maines,&nbsp;&nbsp;</b><br /><b>Emily Robinson, Martie Maguire</b></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We had a marvelous family vacation in Puerto Penasco, Mexico the week after youngest daughter Natasha graduated from law school at USD. We all just caravanned from San Diego down to Rocky Point. My mother joined us again, the second year in a row after my father's death. I'd been writing in a steady and committed way but left my books at home for the first time on a trip like that. I just wanted to be with my family and knew that I would pick right up where I'd left off when I returned.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">However, less than 24 hours after our return home, my mother took a still-mysterious fall at her home and ended up in neuro-ICU with bleeding in two places in her brain. I saw the untransformed future pass before my eyes: endless hours in ERs and hospital rooms; the emotional and physical pain that accompanies such lack of activity and the stress of both the known and the unknown; the loss of power around my declaration that I would finish my dissertation and graduate by December, 2010; and, most devastating, the ultimate loss of my mother.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Her falling wasn't a surprise. Increasingly unsteady, she'd fallen twice in the previous two months. This time, however, it became impossible to distinguish between her rapidly failing memory and the head injury. After almost three weeks, we brought her home to our house, a move we'd been negotiating with her earlier. Suddenly, living alone at her home was no longer an option and we hurriedly shoveled (yes, <i>shoveled</i>) out my office and the adjacent spare room, which had last been Lawyer Girl's. We culled both academic books and fiction I'd been hoarding for decades so as to empty one entire wall of shelves for her personal items, and we still don't know what to do with the large floor loom that remains in the office (now her sitting room).</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Our children living locally made an amazing difference. The oldest daughters helped with this process by moving and cleaning. However, while my mother was in the rehab hospital, daughter #2 was also rushed to the ER with blood sugars over 1000, so we rotated between the rehab facility and the ICU a few blocks away, still trying to prepare the house for Mother's release. In the meantime, I spent a week in Georgia, attending our youngest son's graduation from basic training and transporting him from Ft. Benning to Ft. Gordon, where he will be doing his training in satellite communications. By my return home, David had brought my mother home.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A week later, I had surgery on my other knee.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I know, I know. I just really want to be able to be in the world with my husband, doing the things we love to do together, like scuba diving, hiking, and active travel. I live in a tennis family and I can't play tennis. From my perspective, if not now, then when?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So here I sit, with my crutch and my range of motion and cooling machines, watching Wimbledon tennis (a family tradition). Occasionally I see a black chasm open up that feels like my future. Still working out the anesthesia, I don't feel focused enough to write, and I'm exhausted from answering the same questions over and over again for my mother. Her memory has declined so dramatically that she just now asked me twice in the last five minutes who just called her on the phone (her sister-in-law, whose name she can't now remember). At least twice a day she suddenly turns to me and says, "Doe Nan, I need to go home. I have laundry to do and things to take care of." I remind her that she lives with us now and doesn't need to worry about such things. After years of not cooking and very little cleaning, I've become a homemaker again, which I didn't do very well (and didn't much like doing) the first time around. My mother is my new two-year-old, who I can't pick up and carry around when she gets into her medications and messes them up and other such adventures.</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />(Sidenote: I took my oldest grandchild, a granddaughter, the daughter of my diabetic child who almost died two weeks ago) to a writing workshop at Changing Hands. Because this daughter couldn't drive, her sister and I coordinated making sure her two children's needs were met. It took lots of time and effort and I loved it. It happened that a colleague from ASU had her own daughter in the workshop and we chatted for a while. When I explained why I hadn't been writing, she responded that the only students she'd seen complete PhDs were those who were willing to tell their families to take a hike for six months.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Though it seems counter-intuitive, her observation isn't the truth. So what IS the truth?</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><br />What I know is so about writing a doctoral dissertation while also being a human being:&nbsp;</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><ul><li>"It won't get any better than this," "It's only going to get worse" or "I guess I'll scratch the PhD off my list; I clearly can't do it with all that's happened" are only stories that have nothing to do with what's happened and won't open up a space for action that will make a difference in my life or the lives of my mother, husband, children, and grandchildren.&nbsp;</li><li>I will not tell my family to take a hike while I write my dissertation. </li><li>I can still meet my personal commitments AND manage my mother's care and be her loving daughter at the end of her life AND be an effective spouse, parent, and grandparent while writing my dissertation.</li><li>I am in the process of working out just how it will all happen.&nbsp;</li><li>I am a powerful person who can do amazing things. I am unstoppable.&nbsp;</li></ul>Don't believe me? Hide and watch! </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"></div>Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-81288064797660792712010-04-20T17:26:00.020-07:002010-04-21T18:50:41.477-07:00"Experience" is the Premium Channel<div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Faultlines/dp/B0019C48S8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=dmusic&amp;qid=1271813809&amp;sr=8-1"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Faultlines</span></i></a> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;">Have you ever held something until your hands were aching?&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">And then let it go and watched it fall and listened to it breaking?</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">I have held back time and tide when all the world was plenty,</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">But now my hands are open wide, open wide and empty.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">(Karine Polwart, 2005) </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2483/3703359639_21d054dc5c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2483/3703359639_21d054dc5c.jpg" width="183" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: small;">My hands are wide open...</span></b><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: small;">And the possibilities are endless.</span></b></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Prayers of the Goddess Gaia) </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">(ByDesiree Delgado)</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/desireedelgado/3703359639/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/desireedelgado/3703359639/</a></span></span></span></div><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">C</span>oming to the end of another semester, I stop to reflect on where I've been and where I'm going. I've done much good work on my dissertation in the last three months, finally overcoming the abject terror and lethargy that gripped me every time I even thought about writing. Now, every day I easily contemplate and nuance the intricacies of the arguments I aim to weave about the intersection of Mormonism and the New Spirituality. I'm finally clear that that is the subject of my project. It isn't about New Age or Contemporary Pagan Studies per se. Rather, it's about where those I've called "New Age Mormon Pagans" fit in relation to the larger American spiritual/religious context.&nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span>s I write, the path appears increasingly clear: A review of literature about "spirituality" in America points intuitively to the need to include commentary on the importance of <b><i>experience</i> </b>in American religious history, which has led most Americans to expect (even demand) the right to cultivate a fulfilling--and unmediated--spiritual life. It's interesting to see how sociological investigation of what was happening to "religion" during the 1960s and 70s segued into the </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">1980s and 90s concept of <i>spiritual marketplace</i> (Wade Clark Roof, 1999) and <i>religious economies</i>/<i>rational choice</i> (Stark &amp; Bainbridge, 1985; Stark &amp; Finke, 2005) theories.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">E</span>ven if, like Mark Oppenheimer (<i>Knocking on Heaven's Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture</i>, 2003), you think </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">"alternative" religions had </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">very little impact on Americans and that New Age" spirituality as just so much "silliness" (p. 228) (preferring instead to put your money on the influence of "mainline" religious institutions), <b><i>experience </i></b>is still the watchword. The subversive power of the counterculture, though according to Oppenheimer it produced only "aesthetic" and "formalistic" change, was that it created an entirely new experience of traditional religion (p. 220).&nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">R</span>egardless of whether the women I encounter in my research consider themselves orthodox or heretical Mormons (or not Mormons at all), they are all engaged in the search for a more authentic self-expression in their spiritual lives. In the end, <b><i>experience </i></b>is the premium channel.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>n addition to getting power around my writing, I have also been led to question the degree to which I am fully self-expressed in other areas of my life. What experience of the world am I claiming for myself? Does a scholar who studies historically new and alternative religions (including Mormonism) ever get to be powerfully and fully self-expressed? If so, what might that self-expression look like?</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">&nbsp;</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>t's no wonder that I've put off situating myself in relation to my work in my Preface.&nbsp; </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Have I held onto academic political correctness with white knuckles, assuming the position so to speak, just hoping to avoid the hordes who perpetually mislabel </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">critical analysis</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"> as </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">"misunderstanding."</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">&nbsp; </span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span>'ve come to realize I'm consciously choosing something different, a different way of being. I am no longer so interested in safety. I've let go of the net and what lies broken was in any case no longer interesting or useful.</span></span></div>Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-35212413650253330122010-03-25T17:56:00.009-07:002010-04-01T11:10:14.991-07:00Glenn Beck and the Book of Love<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">The Book of Love</span></i></b></span><br /><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">The book of love is long and boring</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">No one can lift the damn thing</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">It's full of charts and facts and figures</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">and instructions for dancing</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">&nbsp;</span></b><br /><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">But I </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">I love it when you read to me</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">And you</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">You can read me anything</span></b><br /><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">&nbsp;</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">The book of love has music in it</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">In fact that's where music comes from</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Some of it is just transcendental</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Some of it is just really dumb</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">&nbsp;</span></b><br /><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">But I</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">I love it when you sing to me</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">And you</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">You can sing me anything</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">(</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Song by Stephin Merritt</span></b><br /><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;">Sung by Peter Gabriel on "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Of-Love/dp/B0039W9S0E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1269567772&amp;sr=1-1">Scratch My Back</a>," 2010)</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia,&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;"> </span></div><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WpC6Sj4yunc/S6wKS0sNXHI/AAAAAAAAAFE/3TDKs27mB7o/s1600/Glenn+Beck.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WpC6Sj4yunc/S6wKS0sNXHI/AAAAAAAAAFE/3TDKs27mB7o/s200/Glenn+Beck.bmp" width="133" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://www.glennbeck.com/">Glenn Beck</a> </b></span>has become a common topic on blogs and in newspapers and ejournals. In case you've been living in the middle of nowhere for some time now, Beck (who proudly explained his conversion to Mormonism by announcing that <a href="http://forum.colbertnation.com/tcr/board/message?message.uid=88412">he joined the LDS Church </a> so that his wife would marry and have sex with him) took his loud-mouthed show from CNN to <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/glennbeck/">Fox News</a>, where he surely fits in much better. He has made the headlines most recently for<a href="http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201003150017"> his tirade against social justice</a>, urging listeners to flee churches that espoused those principles (like that of Jim Wallis), comparing them with Nazism and Communism. I'm proud to see that two of my friends and colleagues have publicly called him out.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">First,<a href="http://joannabrooks.org/"> Joanna Brooks</a> </span></b><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanna-brooks/bringing-the-hammer-down_b_506282.html">responded </a>with fire by quoting social justice passages from the Book of Mormon, noting the effect his statements have for her:<br /><blockquote>Glenn Beck is a Mormon. So am I. During the nineteenth century, my Mormon ancestors crossed the plains to live their faith without fear of attack from the mobs that had hounded them out of Missouri and Illinois. </blockquote><blockquote>Watching Glenn Beck threaten to "bring the hammer down" on another person of faith makes my stomach turn.</blockquote><b><span style="font-size: large;">Later,</span></b> there was an absolutely <b><i>scathing</i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1432139764"> </a></b><a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2010/03/Glenn-Beck-Versus-Social-Justice.aspx">response to Beck from Jana Riess</a> on the Beliefnet.com "Faiths and Prayer" blog: <br /><blockquote>Dear Glenn Beck,</blockquote><blockquote>Have You Read the Book of Mormon Lately?</blockquote><blockquote>As you know, Glenn, during the last week, Christians of all stripes have debated your advice about exiting any churches that mentioned “social justice” or “economic justice” on their websites or preached it in their sermons. As you apparently hoped, you have dominated the airwaves. The good news for me is that, if you follow your own advice, you must soon be exiting The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which we are both members. And if that happens, I will dance a little jig.</blockquote><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">I couldn't help</span> </b>but laugh out loud! <br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">And so</span> . . . </b>Here is <i>my </i>take on the phenomenon of Glenn Beck:<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">It occurs to me</span> </b>that <span class="il">Beck</span> functions for Mormons in similar ways as Stephenie Meyer and her Twilight series: He allows Mormons to enter mainstream popular culture in ways they wouldn't otherwise be able to, which can be very affirming of historical Mormon identity.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">In addition,</span></b> I also believe he may be an expression of the phenomenon I'm writing about in my dissertation. In a "secularized" (read: routinized, demythologized) Mormonism (which looks more like mainline Protestantism than the mystical tradition established by Joseph Smith), <b><span class="il">Beck</span> reenchants the experience of being Mormon</b> . . . or at the very least he reawakens the Mormon cultural memory of prophetic millennialism. In other words, Mormonism is missing that distinctiveness, that tension of <b><i>persecuted otherness</i>.</b> The "living prophet" rarely speaks on political issues unrelated to gay marriage, so <span class="il">Beck</span> becomes the prophet-cum-Ezra Taft Benson.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Finally, </span></b><span class="il">Beck</span> is so nasty that Mormons are able to live vicariously through him in a whole new way--and even voice their suppressed thoughts and feelings about the way the world works. Ordinarily, Mormons behave passive aggressively because we have demonized disagreement/dissent. (I include myself in this category, though I've spent the better half of the last decade trying to learn new ways of <b><i>being</i></b>). But <span class="il">Beck</span> has a platform that allows him (pays him generously) to say whatever he thinks. Unlike the rest of us, he doesn't have to be "nice" all the time. Mormons admire him for that and, even if just subconsciously, wish to be (like) him. He gets to be the Brigham Young who thumbs his nose at the government and everyone else. He also apparently escapes censure by church authorities, which makes him an even larger icon in the Mormon imagination.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">From my perspective, </span></b>Beck makes a prosperous living from <b><i>inciting </i></b>(an activity markedly different from <b><i>in-sighting</i></b>, or <b>making in-sightful</b>). He has an impact in the world--and not a positive one. The LDS Church felt compelled to make a statement not long ago that doesn't name Beck (or other caustic commentators) directly but responds to his type of fear-based hatemongering, ironically titled <a href="http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-mormon-ethic-of-civility">"The Mormon Ethic of Civility."</a> Which makes me wonder at what point the church might take away his temple recommend for sowing hatred and division, but that's none of my business. (Given the kind of person one is supposed to be <i>being</i> in the world in order to get one of those, one might just be tempted to do a jig over <i>that.</i>)<br /><br />(Glenn Beck image from <a href="http://www.kdwn.com/dm_images/intros/090824161309.bmp">http://www.kdwn.com/dm_images/intros/090824161309.bmp</a>)Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-20931226575800118612008-11-16T11:30:00.030-07:002009-06-16T13:37:17.453-07:00A New Age? or "How Mitt Romney & Proposition 8 Changed the Mormon World"?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WpC6Sj4yunc/Sjf9PIuQtjI/AAAAAAAAADk/ADoM6Xv_xRo/s1600-h/romney.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 130px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WpC6Sj4yunc/Sjf9PIuQtjI/AAAAAAAAADk/ADoM6Xv_xRo/s200/romney.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348021519007135282" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><div><h1><br /></h1><h1><br /></h1><h1><br /></h1><h1><br /></h1><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>When you set a match to your heart</div><div>Fueling with bitterness and doubt.</div><div>That's the place that once it starts</div><div>No amount of tears can put it out.</div><div><br /></div><div>I know you're scared,</div><div>but no one's spared when you play with matches.</div><div><br /></div><div>You've got me walking through the fire...</div><div><br /></div><div>(Walking Through the Fire, by Mary Chapin Carpenter)</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I presented a paper in November, 2008-- in Chicago,<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> just before election day, in the Mormon Studies section at the American Academy of Religion annual conference. A heuristic exercise in looking at agency in Mormonism, the title was "</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Vocal Mormons Meet Mitt Romney: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The Impact of a Mormon Presidential Candidate on Mormon Self-Expression</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">." My argument was that the combination of Romney and the LDS Church's strategic rhetoric in responding to criticism and fear of Mormonism opened up a space for dissenting Mormons to debate controversial issues on the Internet and in other public forums.</span></span></div></div></span><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">In a nutshell, Romney's candidacy resulted in a multitude of news articles and blog essays about the question of individual agency in the LDS Church. As a result, Romney repeatedly insisted that he would not be sanctioned by the LDS Church for publicly supporting social issues the Church is against. Similarly, the LDS Church <a href="http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/public-issues/political-neutrality">reaffirmed its usual assertion of Church political neutrality and extended it by stating its awareness of political diversity among church members and its intention to respect that</a>. Soon after, California Proposition 8 became the litmus test for this implied tolerance. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I have not personally heard that anyone has been excommunicated for public resistance and criticism of Prop 8, though I <i>have </i>heard of a few being threatened privately with church discipline. Even so, I still believe that, without the attention drawn to Romney and the questions he generated about individual agency inside of the LDS Church, Mormons would not have assumed their church's tolerance on this very public and divisive issue and many would not have been public with their critique.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Of course I'm always interested in the insights of others into this and other aspects of the Mormon world. </div><div><br /></div><div>P.S. Many of these ideas appear in an article I wrote for <a href="http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/RINVol11No3/Mormon%20Proposition.htm">Religion in the News</a>, at <a href="http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/RINVol11No3/Mormon%20Proposition.htm">http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/RINVol11No3/Mormon%20Proposition.htm</a></div>Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-76806274844986334912008-11-16T10:46:00.008-07:002008-12-24T20:52:09.727-07:00"Gulf of Mexico Fishing Boat Blues" . . . or Coming Back from the Grave (and Returning to the Living)I’m in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico<br />Working on a fishing boat, how long I don’t know<br />Trouble behind me, yes I’m hoping so<br />Finger on my back, make me say<br />“Whoa, whoa, whoa”<br /><br />(Bruce Hornsby)<br /><br />It has been a very odd year. Living on the boat I had the most disconcerting and almost frightening experience of struggling to write and feeling isolated. I loved being on the boat, loved the music at the marina, loved the life I felt I'd been meant to live, thirty years later, or even just right now. What surprised me was that I thought I welcomed that isolation and believed it would enhance my ability to write. What I found was that, even though I continued conducting numerous interviews during those weeks, I was overcome with strange fears that affected my ability to write ("The boat might sink, and I'd lose my computer and all those library books!").<br /><br />When I returned to AZ to help care for my father as he was dying, I was further decentered by extended periods of sitting and rumination over the meaning of life and the process of death. When he died on the 16th of August and was buried the 19th, I had four days to finish (more like <span style="font-style: italic;">start</span>) preparing to teach my classes, and so right after his funeral I was distracted in a healthy way by 16 hour workdays and concentrated intellectual activity.<br /><br />In addition, I was privileged to have my proposal accepted by the national American Academy of Religion Mormon Studies consultation. (I'll blog about that experience later.)<br /><br />Unfortunately, not only have I not grieved my father, I still haven't written any more on my dissertation. And I haven't been writing here on my blog. John and Kaime's generous promptings have directed me back in this direction, however, and my trip to Chicago has reminded me that I have something to contribute to a community of scholars.<br /><br />I'm back from the grave, though it's no way to know yet what what will look like.Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-55430003580493515832008-07-15T18:16:00.003-07:002008-07-15T19:07:07.404-07:00"The Show Goes On"Got my dad home today, his first day on hospice care. I thought it was hard in the hospital, but this is worse. Perhaps it will just take time to figure out what help we need beyond what hospice provides. Yes, it will just take time. To adjust. To catch up on sleep. The doctor ordered him Ativan for anxiety, and I laughed and said that my mother and I are the ones who need drugs!<br /><br />I apologize to those whose interviews I postponed because I had to rush back to AZ from San Diego. The show goes on, as Bruce says, and in a few days I will be contacting you to reschedule. While facing the reality of mortality my spirits have been lifted by the emails, Facebook comments, and instant messages from those of you who have reaffirmed the importance of the work I'm doing. Your commitment to the vitality of the comparisons I am making and your appreciation of my insights into the diversity of lived Mormonism have kept my spirits up as I walk with my father between the worlds. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will be moving some of my books and other materials to my parents' home so that I can help my mom during the day while getting back to the project.<br /><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>The Show goes on, and the sad-eyed sisters go walking on<br />Everyone watching all along<br />The show goes on, as the autumns coming<br />And the summers all gone<br />Still without you, the show goes on<br /><br />Time is passing,slowly passing you by<br />You better try to find it before it passes you by<br />As I watch you walking to another cold dawn<br />And you keep on walking<br />And they keep on talking<br />Talking all along<br /><br /><a href="http://www.brucehornsby.com/">Bruce Hornsby</a>, "The Show Goes On" from <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Scenes-From-The-Southside/dp/B001BKCJF2/ref=dmusic_cd_album">Scenes From The Southside</a> </span>1988</blockquote>Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-66417445896194232652008-07-09T08:47:00.019-07:002008-07-10T21:18:49.796-07:00"When It Don't Come Easy"<div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_WpC6Sj4yunc/SHTpOp4K8OI/AAAAAAAAACI/OSith3_NlAw/s1600-h/100_2617.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 348px; height: 261px;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_WpC6Sj4yunc/SHTpOp4K8OI/AAAAAAAAACI/OSith3_NlAw/s320/100_2617.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5221054305998139618" border="0" /></a></span></span></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />I had such high hopes for this summer</span>.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Just as I was getting started writing in earnest, I got the call that my dad was dying. In a rush I set the boat in order, packed my books up and put them in the car and took off for home.</span><br /><br />("Don't stop anywhere," my weeping husband said.) </span><br /></div><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" ><blockquote>Red lights are flashing on the highway<br />I wonder if we're gonna ever get home<br />I wonder if we're gonna ever get home tonight<br />Everywhere the waters getting rough<br />Your best intentions may not be enough<br />I wonder if we're gonna ever get home tonight<br /><br />But if you break down<br />I'll drive out and find you<br />If you forget my love<br />I'll try to remind you<br />And stay by you when it don't come easy</blockquote></span><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" >This was the day of my youngest son's nineteenth birthday and a day after the new California hands-free cell phone driving law went into effect. (Trying to make it from CA to AZ to see his granddad that same day, our oldest son was actually stopped and ticketed. I guess the law doesn't have a clause excusing conversations around impending death.)<br /><br />At the border patrol stop the officers asked if I'd been crying and I burst into tears. "I don't want to be a fatherless only child." This is the man who taught me the value of higher education and teaching; from whom I had to take a college course in my undergraduate degree program; who three weeks before said, "How is the dissertation coming? Is it finished? I can't watch you graduate if I'm dead!" I was too ashamed to tell him I was having trouble getting it going.<br /><br />His kidneys gave out 18 months ago; then his liver failed; </span><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" >they say they see spots indicative of cancer but won't do a biopsy because he's in such bad shape in general</span><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" >; and now he's drowning in fluid and aspirating everything from food to saliva.<br /><blockquote> I don't know nothing except change will come<br />Year after year what we do is undone<br />Time keeps moving from a crawl to a run<br />I wonder if we're gonna ever get home<br /><br />You're out there walking down a highway<br />And all of the signs got blown away<br />Sometimes you wonder if you're walking in the wrong direction<br /><br />But if you break down<br />I'll drive out and find you<br />If you forget my love<br />I'll try to remind you<br />And stay by you when it don't come easy</blockquote></span><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" >I'm so grateful for a husband and five children who are my best friends. We come out in the rain to get each other when we've broken down.</span><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br />I still have a father, and I admit I have temporarily lost my taste for writing. But I've been working hundreds of Sudoku puzzles in his hospital room so my mind is at least sharp.<br /></span><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" ><br />I'll be 53 years old on Sunday. I'm going to have my hair cut by one of my best friends who is a brilliant hairdresser with her own shop in town, have my mouthful of caps looked at for some tweaks in my bite, and sit by my father's bed as he tries to get well enough to go home to hospice care.<br /><br />I'll write next week. I'm old enough to know that being in a hurry isn't always the best thing.<br /><br />[Lyrics from </span><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:100%;" >"When It Don't Come Easy" by Patty Griffin from the album "Impossible Dream"]</span>Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-58140987769454960032008-06-20T20:58:00.006-07:002008-06-27T12:07:34.915-07:00"Mercy Street"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bobbymartini.blogspot.com/2007/11/peter-gabriel-mercy-street-ep.html"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_WpC6Sj4yunc/SGU5Wvd34sI/AAAAAAAAACA/8cPTiBAe7h4/s320/Mercy+Street+City+of+Gabriel.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216638806240256706" border="0" /></a>I'm sitting on the boat having not written a blessed word all day (except for emails and now this blog post) listening to <a href="http://www.idinamenzel.com/" target="_blank" class="PerformanceTitle"> Idina Menzel </a>sing at <a href="http://www.humphreysconcerts.com/schedule_long.cfm">Humphrey's Concerts by the Bay</a>, to which the marina is attached. She performed in the productions <span style="font-style: italic;">Rent </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">Wicked</span> and her voice is soaring and pristine. However, I'm longing for Peter Gabriel, the artist's voice I find most comforting when I'm in pain or in trouble. Like today.<br /><br />Fibromyalgia flares don't lay me low very often (I most often work through them) but I think it's the combination of the "pretend" bed I'm sleeping on in the boat with the extended sitting I'm doing in an equally uncomfortable seat in the extremely small galley. It's not like I'm not being active at all. The boat is on the dock that is farthest from the marina entrance (and hence the restrooms, showers, and laundry facilities) and each round trip is 1/3 mile.<br /><br />I've done some writing and numerous interviews, but my mind is numbed by the pain in my body and all I want to do is surf the net, imagine myself paddling around the marina in a sea kayak or sailing in San Diego Bay. Imagine. Not happening right now.<br /><br />So I'm listening to Elphaba but I'm thinking of Mercy Street.<br /><blockquote>There in the midst of it, so alive and alone,<br />words support like bone</blockquote><blockquote>. . . . Anne, with her father is out in the boat<br />riding the water<br />riding the waves on the sea<br /><br /><br /></blockquote>Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-16974104758824618012008-06-07T11:53:00.006-07:002008-06-07T12:49:02.217-07:00"Shaking the Tree"This has been an interesting week. Looking back it would be easy to say that I didn't get much of anything done. And yet I did several interviews for my dissertation and worked on Sunstone Salt Lake City. I spent extended time with a friend who is suffering, and with my grandchildren who are finally getting used to the idea that I'm actually their grandma (and not just a specter of some sort). And though I usually eat most of my meals out (<a href="http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/locations/haji-baba-middle-eastern-food-4703">Haji Baba's</a> and <a href="http://www.pitajungle.com/">Pita Jungle</a> are my local favorites), I bought three months of food storage because <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/paul-detrick/2008/04/04/cnn-reporter-links-rising-food-costs-ethanol">CNN </a>and <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24870155/">MSNBC </a>have been keeping me informed on the international food situation. I've also done a lot of research, continuing to find participants who fit into the categories in which I'm interested--whether they're blogging or on email lists or "meetup" (<a href="http://www.meetup.com/">http://www.meetup.com</a>) groups. And I spent an entire day with one of my daughters, who is chronically ill and needs help with her diet. I've been cooking more too, doing dishes, cleaning closets, and basically being a real human being. So I can't say that I've been unproductive--though I also watched a lot of TV (vampire movies rock!) and had to recover from a nasty migraine earlier in the week.<br /><br />But I've been avoiding actually writing, beyond continuing to work on the introduction to my dissertation. I am surely an undiagnosed obsessive compulsive, because I work and rework....and rework again so that sometimes one or two paragraphs monopolizes several hours. Words have power. One of my main concerns, then, is "getting it right." Not that there's a "right" way to write a dissertation, but analyzing what these women are doing and how they are doing it is a great responsibility.Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-88062123433276309912008-05-15T19:58:00.004-07:002008-05-15T20:20:24.994-07:00"Wanderlust"This is the title of one of my favorite Paul McCartney songs, in which he waxes poetic about a (presumably) large ship. Then there's Winedark Open Sea, another McCartney love song about how easy it can be to relax and just love someone...."sailing on a winedark, open sea." It's hard to imagine having any kind of wanderlust stuck in front of a computer with Bubba under my feet and Luna trying to sit on my lap while I type and do interviews. The whole day is gone....and the one before it and then the next one coming . . .<br /><br />But next week I am taking my family (all but one of them, grandkids and all) to California for a week on the beach, and then I will take over my daughter's sailboat while she migrates to San Jose for her legal internship. My husband said "You just need to go somewhere and hole up and write--and don't stop until you finish."<br /><br />Sailing on a wine-dark open sea sounds like a good place to write a book about the richness and depth of spiritual practice. Every person I interview for this project helps me better understand the data contained in the latest Pew Forum study about religion and public life in America: our religious identities are incredibly fluid and we feel more and more entitled to explore and innovate meaningful spiritual lives.<br /><br />Perhaps that innovation and exploration is . . . Wanderlust.<br /><br />See you on the beach!Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3818574397256873614.post-82492705523980626092008-05-09T14:24:00.005-07:002008-05-15T20:22:01.025-07:00Dissertation Proposal Defense: The Beginning of the Beginning Between the Mormon Worlds<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://openphoto.net/volumes/scott/20040220/opl_dscf0123.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 186px; height: 139px;" src="http://openphoto.net/volumes/scott/20040220/opl_dscf0123.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:180%;">S</span>omething ended today. My grades were due at the community college. I clicked "save" and it was done. I still have grades to post for almost 200 students at ASU, but they're done and ready to go. Right now all I want to do is breathe deeply and appreciate how it feels to be done with another semester.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">I</span>n another ending that was really a beginning, I successfully <span style="font-family:georgia;">defended </span>my dissertation proposal yesterday. Though it certainly didn't require the same type of time or effort as my comprehensive exams last year, when it was done I realized that I was exhausted. At times like these I question the virtue of the academic life, even though it's the thing I've been the most successful at. It's difficult to explain the exhaustion of mental and emotional work when to others I appear to simply be sitting around with a lot of books and green tea.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">T</span>his is further complicated by the type of work I do: Religious Studies. Though I recognize that all academic fields can hold anxiety, conversations about religion are unique in their capacity to trigger deeply held assumptions and produce misunderstandings and conflict. Teaching about religion in a public university is exhilarating and at times frightening. I can promise that eventually someone will encounter something offensive in the material presented in class--such as when I show the video from the 1990s on Christian Fundamentalism. It always upsets students, but is important because it enriches their understanding of the role fundamentalism has played in 20th-century American culture.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">T</span>eaching about Mormonism can be just as upsetting to different students for different reasons. Still, I'm grateful for the opportunity to do it and I acknowledge my students, many of whom are bewildered when they discover the course they've registered for isn't like the last Institute class they took. Whether they are LDS or not, they are challenged to reflect on and push through their resistance to seeing things anew, to step outside personal commitments, to explore what it means to move around in this religious world. It takes courage to do that work.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">I</span>'m writing this dissertation about 21st-century Mormon women's spiritual practices. I'm not writing about <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">all </span>LDS women, of course, but a particular subset. I call them New Age Mormon Pagans, knowing that most of them wouldn't consider themselves New Age <span style="font-style: italic;">or</span> Pagan--and some of them either no longer consider themselves Mormon or are not yet Mormon but want to convert! In addition, they're incredibly diverse in other ways. But I like the term and I hope it doesn't offend anyone.<br /><br />So as I pursue the personal narratives of LDS women who do past-life regressions, practice herbalism, read tarot cards, do Reiki, and/or use crystals (etc.), I have discovered that most of them are faithful Latter-day Saints who are passionate about their spiritual practices. As a critical ethnographer, one of my mandates is to protect their anonymity while advocating for the legitimacy of their claims to authentic Mormon identity.Doe Daughtreyhttps://plus.google.com/107997329708325958720noreply@blogger.com3